Medha Sarin
Roswell Tribune
msarin@elritomedia.com
A metal gray pail filled with sleek brown packages sat on a table on the Chaves County Courthouse lawn on July 18. Decorated with stickers and flowers, each box held a book – a special mystery for the receiver to read.
“It’s like a blind date with yourself,” said Elisa Ezell, a vendor selling the books.
Ezell, 42, also had her own bath salts and sourdough bread for sale at Roswell’s second farmer’s market of the season, featuring a variety of handmade goods, baked treats and specialty artwork.
The Farmers Market, hosted by MainStreet Roswell runs each Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon until Oct. 17.
Though Ezell’s bread sold out before the market’s halfway point, she offered bath salt packets made of crushed, dried fruits and dehydrated flowers. She said she typically found good flowers from Albertson’s.
Ezell added plain bath salt or Himalayan salt into the fruity, floral mix and infused it with oils and scents, like lavender or chamomile.
“Let it dissolve a little and then you’ve got flowers floating around you,” Ezell said. “You’re like a princess.”
This time around, Ezell shared watercolor notebooks and the “blind date with a book” packages on behalf of her friend and fellow vendor, Peggy Bridges.
Ezell recalled meeting Bridges at a market at Roswell Mall last summer and admiring her unique concept. The two started a friendship, leading Ezell to help sell Bridges’ books a year later.
“It’s different,” she said of the blind book concept at local markets. “Nobody else has them.”
The books explore comedy and romance, sometimes leaning more “spicy.” They include cute yet wholesome Amish romance novels as well, Ezell said.
Bridges fills the inside of the books with tea bags and bookmarks as an added gift to the reader. Ezell reminisced on the first time she bought a book from Bridges, opening it in a 14-hour train to California.
“I had my tea on the train and I was reading the book,” she said. “It was like a present for me.”
Elsewhere on the courthouse lawn, 32-year-old Gladis Walden leaned her phone over a table and held up a small felt gnome to the screen.
Walden said she brought her family from Wichita Falls to Roswell to partake in “the whole alien thing,” but noticed the farmer’s market and wanted to visit.
Her eyes naturally fell on a table adorned with small and big garden gnomes, which she knew would make the perfect gift. At least, for someone else.
“My son’s grandma loves gnomes,” Walden said. “She has them all around her house. I’m scared these things will come to life.”
Walden video called her son’s grandma to select three small gnomes for purchase while craft maker Susan Huerta, 70, looked on with pride.
Huerta said her lifelong fascination with gnomes grew while working at Walmart and witnessing the store’s garden gnome section.
“I fell in love with them even more,” Huerta said.
About five years ago, she noticed gnome creations on Pinterest and wanted to try her hand at it.
“I thought ‘Gosh, I need to try that,’” she said. “I made little sock ones with no arms and feet when I started out. It’s been five years, so they’ve progressed a lot.”
What started as limbless sock creatures became much larger felt creations adorned with craft leaves, butterflies and other enchanting accessories.
Huerta said she taught herself to sow, creating her gnomes’ hats from a triangular piece of felt. For the hat brim, she cuts felt into a circular piece the size of a 7-inch dessert pan.
Huerta even had a Halloween-themed gnome for sale with string lights attached. She acquired a wood piece from a relative, sanded it down to form a base and glued the spooky gnome on top.
“I just look and see what I’ve got and start laying it out to see how it’s going to look,” she said. “When I decide that I like it, I glue it in place.”
Since entering the gnome-crafting world five years ago, Huerta has attended farmer’s markets and sold her artwork “like crazy.”
Huerta praised her daughter Sabrina Lara, 47, and other relatives for giving her the courage to become a market vendor.
“I never dreamed I was crafty in all my life,” Huerta said. “If it hadn’t been for my daughter and my grandson and his wife encouraging me, telling me that they thought I could sell them, I wouldn’t have gone out on my own.”
